Hunter/Jumper Prospect

Galveston Island was originally inhabited by members of the Karankawa and Akokisa tribes who called the island Auia. The Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca and his crew were shipwrecked on the island or nearby in November 1528, calling it "Isla de Malhado" ("Isle of Bad Fate"). They began their years-long trek to a Spanish settlement in Mexico City. During his charting of the Gulf Coast in 1785, the Spanish explorer José de Evia named the island Villa Gálvez or Gálveztown in honor of Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez (1746–1786). The island's first permanent European settlements were constructed around 1816 by the pirate Louis-Michel Aury to support Mexico's rebellion against Spain.